


Look for the pieces

by thecat_13145



Series: The Stark Pattern [2]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, References to Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 10:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecat_13145/pseuds/thecat_13145
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Howard goes looking for answers</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look for the pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Stark Pattern](https://archiveofourown.org/works/673443) by [thecat_13145](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecat_13145/pseuds/thecat_13145). 



> This is an expansion of the scene mentioned by Peggy in my fic "The Stark Pattern" and an attempt to tie up comic canon and Movie canon.

When the phone rang, Peggy Carter had only just got to sleep. She jerked awake as the bell sounded through her small flat, and then pulled herself out of bed and across the cold floor to the infernal machine.

“Hello?”

“Hello Peggy!” The voice down the phone was too loud, too eager for this time of night. “It’s Howard.”

“I guessed that.” She rubbed her eyes, glancing briefly at the clock on the mantelpiece.

“I need your help.”

“Did you forget the time difference again?” it would be about half past eight in America. Early for Howard, unless he hadn’t gone to bed yet. “Can’t it wait till tomorrow?”

“No.” Howard’s voice sounded panicky. “No. Tomorrow might be too late.”

“Well, I can’t just drop everything and fly out to_” She froze as she heard a distinct noise in the background. The chimes of Big Ben just audible above the buzz of traffic. “Howard where are you?”

“Piccadilly.” She closed her eyes in worried frustration, as Howard Corrected himself. “At least I think its Piccadilly, it sort of looks like Piccadilly, but everything’s changed here, so it’s a bit hard to tell. Still, the cab driver I asked said it was Piccadilly and he seemed an honest man, even if he wouldn’t take dollars and_”

“Stay where you are.” She wasn’t sure if Howard was mad, drunk or in the middle of a mental breakdown. He could not be left wondering on his own around Piccadilly, or any other part of London as much for the city’s safety as his own. “I’m coming to get you.”

With a sigh, she fumbled back into her room, pulling on the skirt and shirt she’d discarded less than an hour before. When the war was over, she had hoped that this part of her life was over.

Unbidden, a quote from her school days ran through her head. “Only the dead have truly seen the end of war.”

/**//*/*/**/*//**/*/*/*/

Howard was not standing inside the phone box where she had told him to say. Instead, he had gone back to talk to the cabbie and somehow or other charmed his way back to their hut, where he and three other men, plus two ladies of the night stood or sat. They drinking hot soup and tea, and laughing at some story that Howard was telling.

She had driven at break neck speeds down English country roads to reach London, her mind running over all the terrible, terrible things that could have brought Howard to England, and here he was looking completely fine.

She hit the horn with more force than was strictly necessary, letting the honk ring out into the quiet of the night.

She watched as Howard grinned and waved at her, getting to his feet and picking up his coat. She watched as one of the two girls, who didn’t look old enough to have finished school, kissed him on the mouth, before he ran down the steps, and as ever, tried to climb in at the wrong door. She held the door tightly closed, not caring if she was being childish.

“You’re a married man, Howard Stark.” She said, chidingly, as Howard climbed into the right side, into the passenger’s seat. She expected some joking comment about English prudish, or about Jealousy, not Howard to slump back against the seat suddenly looking exhausted.

“Yes,” he muttered. “I am.”

Peggy turned the engine off, to save petrol. They sat in silence for maybe two minutes before Howard spoke.

“Maria’s pregnant.”

“Oh.” She wondered what this had to do with Howard being in England. “That’s wonderful news.”

She knew how hard they’d being trying to conceive a child, virtually since the wedding. Knew from conversations with Howard about his fears that it would never happen, stories of other men who’d worked on the project with him who would never have children. Had talked with Maria through the pain of two miscarriages, when Howard locked himself away in the lab and wouldn’t even open the door to his wife’s desperate pleas.

“Congratulations.”

Howard nodded, slowly. “I’m going to be a father.” He said, as though he can’t quite believe it himself.

A cold knot of fear curled in her stomach, as Peggy realised the way this conversation was going. “Howard don’t.” She said, gently reaching out to rest one hand on his arm. “You’re not like him. He’s dead. Don’t….” she doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, isn’t completely sure there is an ending to it.

Howard stared at her, dark brown eyes drilling into her soul “I’m going to be a father.” He repeated. “Me, the Emperor of death.” He paused and added. “That’s what they call me, you know. The hippies. Couple of them even sprayed it in my office. Obadiah wanted me to press the charges, but I…” he shrugged. “I couldn’t. They weren’t far wrong.”

“You made Steve.” She said, forcing her voice not to break over his name. “The advances made by Stark medical are saving lives. What happened over their probably saved millions of lives.”

“And ruined millions more.” Howard stared ahead of him, his eyes resting on the statue of Eros standing in the middle of street. Peggy remembered Howard telling her that it was there that his father had proposed to his mother, a day after the Titanic sank. How they used the confusion created by that disaster to elope first to Bethnal green, where they had married and then to Paris, where they had told everyone what they’d done. “Scandal of the generation.” He’d said, draining the bottle, and Peggy hadn’t known what to say.

“I need,” Howard shifted uncomfortably, his voice breaking the silence. “I need to know who he was before he changed.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” She asked, hoping her frustration didn’t leak through her voice. Howard held out a piece of paper and flashed an approximation of his most charming smile at her. “I hoped…you might help me?”

Peggy Carter glanced down at the address. She supposed she should just be grateful it was in East Anglia and not the far north of Scotland or something like that.

She should tell Howard to leave it. To go back to America (Los Angles? Miami? New York? She can’t remember) and his wife. To prepare in the traditional way for the arrival of a new baby, not in this Howard Stark way.

Instead she said, “We’re going to need more petrol”

“Petrol?” Howard’s face fake crumples up and she punched him in the arm. “Gas, you bloody Yank.”

/*/*/*/*/**/*//*/*/*/*/*/*/*

As the tightly coil roads of London gave way to the slightly wider roads of the suburbs, Peggy reviewed in her mind all that she knew about Howard’s father.

Howard Stark Senior, though it was a testimony to the strength and brilliance of his son that she’d never heard anyone call Howard Junior. Not ever his father’s old friends.

First Generation American, first generation of Stark’s to be born on American Soil. Mother Italian, Father German. Met and married in New York, but lured by the promise of gold made their way west, Ultimately ending up in Los Angles, where Howard Stark Senior was born. His father was one of the lucky ones. He came up with a machine that could sort rocks much quicker than an assessor, but not before he lost his wife to Cholera. Howard Stark Senior Father had worked every hour that god had sent, but had still only being a relatively well off man, when he sent his son to try and establish contacts in Europe in 1910.

It was there that Howard Stark Senior had met Elizabeth Watson, or to give her her full title, The Honourable Ms Elizabeth Watson, daughter of Viscount Dr. John Heathcliff Watson M.D. of Reading.

Howard Senior, if stories from Brian Falsworth were to be believed, had caught a glimpse of her at her father’s offices, and later charmed his way into an invitation for dinner. Elizabeth Stark was 21, had just being presented at Court and was apparently one of the most beautiful debutants of her day, thoroughly expected to make a good marriage. In fact, she had actually being engaged to a Lord, when she met Howard Stark Senior.

The rest, Peggy could easily guess if Howard was anything like his father. The Starks, or the ones she had met at least, had a natural charisma that trapped you even though you swore you’d have nothing to do with them. It was impossible to remain angry for any real length of time with a Stark, and in time Elizabeth had fallen under Howard Senior’s spell.

Her father, however, had remained immune to the young American’s charms and had threatened to take a horse whip to Howard if he continued to apply his “unwanted attentions” on his daughter.

Howard had responded by proposing and then eloping with Ms Watson. He was 28, she was barely 22. They had married in Bethnal Green, and then lived in Paris for a year before returning to America.

Watson had being furious, and had threatened to cut Elizabeth off without a penny. He probably would have too, if The Great War hadn’t broken out less than two years afterwards.

Howard Stark Senior had placed his pregnant wife on a ship for America and returned to Europe. Despite some initial distrust, caused mainly by his father’s German blood, he had managed to secure multiple contracts with the British Government. Making Weapons, mostly identifying and creating the gases for use on the Western Front. He had actually seen some action over there, losing his right in the field when a German shell exploded near to where he was overseeing a test of a new gas. It hadn’t even slowed down his work.

Elizabeth’s three brothers were killed, two of them by poisoned gas.

John Watson had seen enough to know exactly what sort of man his son in law was, but Elizabeth, especially after his wife died of the Spanish flu, was the only surviving member of his family. He had therefore left his money in trust for his grandsons, Howard born just before the war and Edmund born just after it.

“not much” Howard had told her, in one of the long days after Steve’s death where she’d beg him to talk about absolutely anything just to keep her mind off Steve, “Most of his wealth was tied up in Foreign companies or in the American stock exchange, so what the war didn’t see to, the crash did, but there was enough. Enough that we could leave him when we turned twenty one get away.” He’d laughed. “Except we couldn’t. But it was a nice idea.”

“And the Viscount?”She’d asked. “Should I call you the Honourable Howard Stark?”

“Nothing Honourable about me.” Howard had laughed and leered at her. “No, that went to a second cousin or something, I think.” He’d shrugged, not really interested, but she couldn’t help herself being. It sounded so romantic, if it hadn’t been for the after math.

Howard Stark Senior was a drunkard and a wife beater. Child beater too, but people seemed less shocked by that, or perhaps it was just less well know. Howard hadn’t told her much, but he’d told her enough for her to know that Howard had lived in terror of his life every day before the War began, and had spent most of the time he was out of his father’s eyes scandalising him, running around with a fast set.

Women, alcohol, drugs, men, Howard had admitted to trying them all, “but nothing came close to science, until…” He smiled, slurring, “Until Maria.”

Maria Collins Carbonell. Maria who had turned Howard down when he asked to marry her before the war, and had proposed to him when he got back.

Maria was brilliant, Peggy knew that, she’d read her papers, but she confused Peggy. She knew that Howard would be perfectly happy to have Maria as an equal partner in his efforts, that was why he’d changed the Company name to Stark Industries, as opposed to Stark and Sons, but Maria didn’t want it. She, as far as Peggy could tell, genuinely wanted and was happy as a housewife and would presumably be the same as a mother. Sometimes Peggy wondered if she wanted it for Howard or if there were demons in Maria’s past that drove her there.

Howard glanced at her.

“What are you thinking?”

Peggy sighed. “Wondering how I let you talk me into this. And how I’m going to explain this to my bosses.”

Howard nodded, apparently content to accept her lie. “You could leave them. Come work for me.”

The old argument. She shook her head. “I’m not a secretary, Mr Stark.”

“You wouldn’t have to be.” His tone was whining, pleading. “You could be my…executive assistant. Heck, I’d make you head of Security, if you want.”

She bit on her lip. “I don’t think Obadiah would like that.”

She didn’t like Obadiah. She was ninety percent certain the feeling was mutual, but there was something about Obadiah that made her skin crawl. She had only met the man twice and had had to spend a day after each meeting on the gunnery range before she felt calm enough to go on. She’s heard stuff, ugly rumours that she can believe, but Howard has made it very clear that he doesn’t want to hear.

Howard shrugged. “I own the controlling share.”

You say that now, here, but… She shook her head. “I like my current job, Howard.”

Howard smiled. “So what are you working on currently?”

She takes her eyes off the road for a second. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

She’s serious and he knows it. It doesn’t stop Howard leaning back against the leather lined seats of her Morris, smiling like a Cheshire Cat. “Alright, let me guess.” His smile is as wide as Lewis Carols’ fabled animal. “It’s an international project. Something to deal with the relents of Hydra. Something under a certain one eyed Colonel, whose got the Army Big wigs upset_”

She stared at him, open mouthed. “How did you?”

Howard shrugged. “You think you’re the only one with security clearance? Beyond that, who else is the military going to get to build all their fancy toys?”

Peggy couldn’t help it, the man’s arrogance was so…beguiling. She laughed.

/**//**//**/*/*//**/*/*/

She was going to kill Brian Falsworth.

Peggy peered at the map spread out across her knees and tried to figure out if it was left or right and did it really make any difference?

She sighed in frustration.

She had hoped that Brian had got over his…attraction towards Howard, but in spite of Roger Audrey’s presence in the other man’s life, Brian proved that it wasn’t just women Howard could charm the knickers off.

She had said as much to him at the last petrol station, while, Howard talked engines with the owners. She had slipped and put a trunk call into Falsworth Manor

“What the hell were you thinking?”

There was silence at the other end of the line before a voice spoke. “I know I’m supposed to ask who you want to speak to,” The voice sounded like it was torn between laughing and screaming. “But given the question, I’ll take a guess its Brian you want.”

“Roger.” She cursed herself. She like Roger. He was a good man, a former undercover operative in France, that was how he’d met Brian, and now one of the few she, and Howard, she supposed, were working with to help the keep the world safe. Roger didn’t deserve her anger. “Yes, please.”

“I’ll just get him.” Roger grinned. “Just when you finish, remind him he owes me five bob. I said you wouldn’t be happy with this.” She heard the receiver being handed over, then Brian’s voice.

“Aah Peggy, I was wondering when you’d call.”

“Don’t you Peggy me!” she hissed into the receiver, glancing at Howard who had his head bent over an engine and was talking about the differences between British and American cars. “What the hell were you thinking?”

She could hear Brian sigh, leaning the table on which the phone was resting. “Peggy, the man is scared. He’s about to be a father. That makes a man remember his own. And you know as well as I do, he doesn’t have that many good memories of his father. He’s,” He sighed again. “He’s scared. And he needs answers.”

“So you dragged him half way around the world to help him?” She knew she sounded waspish, but she felt she could be excused, she’d had very little sleep.

“I didn’t know he was going to come here.” Brian sounded frustrated. “He gave a me a list of people and asked me if I knew anyone on it. I said I did and gave him the addresses. I never thought that he’d do this. I admit I should have. I mean he’s Howard Stark.”

She couldn’t honestly argue with that, and Brian…she had never been able to stay angry at him anymore than she could with Howard. So she reminded him that his war was over, and Brian invited her down for a visit. She had hung up to find out that Howard had not only hired the garage hand, but had also apparently got directions for the house they wanted and was in middle of negating a new Site for Stark European, when Peggy dragged him away.

/*/*/**//**//*

A part of Peggy thought she should have insisted that Howard call Maria when they stopped the last time.

Maria was Howard’s wife, the future mother of his child.

Peggy was just Howard’s friend.

The again, she thought, as she put the handbrake on in front of the overgrown garden, she is one of the few of those he has.

She can’t imagine Obadiah here somehow. Obadiah, who she occasionally thought was a plant by the US Military to make sure they got the best of Stark industry Tech, would have not understood, and Maria was pregnant.

She glanced at Howard. “Do you want me to come in?”

Howard didn’t reply.

“You don’t have to go in.”

Howard glanced at her. “My father died while I was in Europe. I never got to say goodbye, to ask if he regretted what he did to me, to my mother, my brother. To ask him if he had doubts.” He glanced up the drive.

“There might not be any answers.” Peggy suggested gently. “Sometimes, some things, there’s only questions.”

Howard smiled at her. “You know I don’t believe that. All questions have answers. You just have to look for them.” He leant over and unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door.

Peggy watched him walk up the garden path and sighed. She wished she’d brought a book.

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Peggy was one of a handful of people, steadily growing smaller she supposed, to know Howard Stark’s full name.

Not what he always put when asked for his full name, Howard Anthony Walter Stark, but the full thing that had being written on his birth certificate. Howard Antony Sherlock Walter Stark. Howard always shrugged when it was brought up and said he’d got lucky. Edward had Mycroft as a middle name.

He had apparently being named partly in honor of one of his grandfather’s old friends, one of the few who had tried to persuade John Watson not to put up such a forceful resistance to the marriage.

“Just shows the Greatest Consulting Detective wasn’t always right.” Howard had declared bitterly one evening, when they were both drunker than they should have being. Peggy disagreed, even if she would never tell Howard that.

She thought that the other man had realized that if John Watson hadn’t put up such a fierce resistance, Elizabeth (who by all accounts was not a completely stupid woman) might not have married him. Or Howard Stark Senior might not have married her.

He loved her in his own way. Or at least, she was the woman he always came back to, though that might have being the marriage bonds. And Elizabeth had stayed.

It was all very well to say it was a different age, a different generation, they handled things differently, but Peggy disagreed.

Divorcing her husband might have created a scandal, but his behavior towards her created an even worse one, or at least if Howard was to be believed.

Once, not long after Howard’s marriage, Peggy had met up with him in London. It had being the anniversary of Steve’s death, and she had got drunk. Very drunk.

Howard had carried her back and put her to bed. In the morning, Maria Stark had arrived unexpectedly while Howard was in the bathroom.

Peggy had never being more embarrassed in her life, and had tried to reassure Maria that this definitely not what it looked like.

She and Howard had never even done Fondue for Christ sake.

Maria had nodded, apparently unconcerned. “I know.” She’d said, putting her bag down. “I know Howard wouldn’t do that.”

She had put her bag down on the dressing table and begun to tidy her hair after the journey. Peggy was wondering if she should get annoyed, when she saw the distress on Maria’s face.

“He won’t be his father.” She muttered. “He would never cheat on me. But he will also never say he loves me.”

“He does.” Peggy tried, desperate to reassure the woman. Maria nodded. “I know, but he’ll never say it to me. He won’t even say that he likes me, or that’s he’s pleased I’ve come” She blinked back her tears. “But he is. He is.” Peggy has often wondered if Maria realized how desperate she sounded

/**//**/*/*//*/*

It was dark when Howard came out.

Peggy had watched the doctor’s car come and a few minutes later watched the man emerged from the house, his head down. She had watched an elderly man moving around opening a window and later closing the curtains.

It was a while before Howard came out, holding his tie in one hand.

He clambered back into the car, and they continued to sit in silence for a few minutes, before Howard spoke.

“Edward wants me to buy him out of the business.” He was looking at his tie, and the last time she’d seen him look that unhappy was the day she asked him to stop the search for Steve. That she accepted that he was gone, that she was never going to see again and she didn’t want Howard to waste his life looking for him out some sense to guilt towarsd her. Howard had looked like all hope had gone from him, and she had regretted it the instant she’d asked it. But she’d never taken it back and neither of them ever spoke of the fact that they knew Howard would never truly stop looking for Steve. 

Peggy blinked. “But what about…” She rummaged in the corner drawers of her mind for Edward’s son’s name. Something Arthurian and not in a good way. Merlin? No. “Morgan?”

Howard shrugged. “Says he wants to give his son something that isn’t stained in blood.” He shook his head. “Said I didn’t know what war was, so I couldn’t understand.”

Edward had recieved the call up for Vietnam war and, in spite of Howard's pleas, had gone. Peggy didn't know what had happened when he returned, Howard refused to talk about it, but she knew there was a gap between the brothers that hadn't been there previously.

“That’s not true!” She yelled. Howard shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter. Obadiah would love to be a partner, and there’s Grandfather’s money. That should be enough.”

“But…”Peggy wanted to ask how he felt about it. About the thing that the brothers had in common being broken apart. Howard looked at her, his eyes begging her just to let it drop, and she did. Reluctantly.

“Is that why you came here?”

“Partly.” He shrugged. “My father was never really a soldier.”

“Perhaps that made it harder.” Peggy suggested, uncertainly. Howard didn’t reply.

“You should call Maria. She’ll be worried about you.” Peggy suggested tentatively after a little time had passed. Howard nodded. “Yeah.” He glanced down the darkening road. “But right now, I just want to find a pub and get plastered.” He smiled at her and if his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, well she could ignore it. “Think you can help with that?”

“Of course.” She reached over, squeezed his hand and set off in to the night.

“Peggy.” The voice was uncertain and small and she purposely kept her eyes on the road for fear of stopping the confidences.

“If I ever get like him, you’d stop me, right?”

Peggy nodded. “Of Course Howard.”

Howard nodded quietly and gazed out into the night.


End file.
